Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Sarah Palin just finished their big rally in Minneapolis with the Republican Party of Minnesota, an event that had a clear theme running through it: conservative girl power.
The optics of the event were all based around empowering conservative women. The supporters standing behind the speaker were all women of various ages. Palin and Bachmann entered to the country song “This One’s For The Girls” recorded by Martina McBride.
Bachmann’s speech, which included her typical rhetoric about government takeovers of the “private economy” that was previously “100% private,” focused on what she said was President Obama’s weakness on national security weakness. But, she also made gender a theme. “I think I heard somebody say ‘repeal,'” Bachmann said, in reference to the health care bill. “You better believe it, baby. Repeal is what this girl is gonna be all about after November.”
This event was not in Bachmann’s district, but was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center in district of Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison.
In introducing Palin, Bachmann spoke of the admiration they all felt for Palin’s fortitude and determination, and her appeal: “Part of it is that she is so much a one of us. And as absolutely drop-dead gorgeous as this woman is on the outside, I am here to testify she is 20 times more beautiful on the inside.”
Palin brought on the folksy charm, as well, telling Minnesotans: “I love being here in Minnesota because you all sound like me – or I sound like you, vice versa!”
Palin also paid tribute to the Tea Party movement, and its female leaders. “Something kind of interesting about some of these Tea Party leaders, we’re finding out most of them are women. Yeah, some surveys show that,” Palin said. “And that gives us inspiration, because as Ronald Reagan’s friend Margaret Thatcher said: if you want something said, ask a man — if you want something done, ask a woman. But I’m more traditional in my mantra: Behind every successful man stands a very surprised woman.”
Palin also continued, hearkening back to her run for vice president in 2008: “It kind of reminds me of that campaign button we saw in 2008. It was a pink GOP elephant, and it said, ‘it’s a girl.’ Well someone better warn Washington, that pink elephant is on the move, and 2010 is shaping up to be the year when conservative women get together and take back this country. And Michele is leading the stampede.”
Palin also returned to something of a running gag for her — the time she was caught writing notes on her hand, at the same time as she made fun of President Obama for using a teleprompter. In this case, she revealed that she’d written on her hand the notes about Bachmann’s own prolific motherhood: “That was palm-worthy, I had to write that one on my hand – five children and 23 foster kids. Yeah this is the poor man’s version of the teleprompter, we’re still kicking it old school.”
At times seeming like they were themselves running mates of a kind, Palin talked of how she first met Bachmann back in 2008, seemingly before Palin got on the national ticket, when Bachmann and a group of House Republicans visited Alaska for a tour of their energy resources. “And I knew that we would be buddies when she came up and said we should ‘drill here and drill now.’ And I said — and then I replied, ‘Drill baby, drill’ And then we both said, ‘You betcha,’ Palin said.
(It should be noted that the slogan “Drill, baby, drill,” is widely credited to Michael Steele, who used the phrase during his speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention. This meeting between Palin and the visiting Republican Congressional delegation would have occurred some time before the convention.)
Palin concluded her speech by paying tribute to Bachmann’s efforts to oppose the Obama administration’s health care bill, and how she was stirring up opposition nationwide beyond just her own district and state. “So what do you say, Minnesota,” Palin concluded in her speech. “Will you do the rest of the nation a favor and re-elect Michele Bachmann, help her keep on serving this country?”
Also appearing at the rally was Minnesota’s governor and potential presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty, who spoke before Palin and Bachmann took to the stage. Pawlenty’s speech was very much his standard Republican stump speech against President Obama’s agenda.
“We now live in a country where Wall Street gets a bailout, the poor get a handout, and everybody else gets their wallet out. And so I ask you, have you had enough?,” Pawlenty said. “We now live in a country where the President of France — let me repeat that, the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, lectures us on the dangers of appeasement. Have you had enough?”
(Pawlenty neglected to mention that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is a staunch conservative within his country’s politics, also criticized America for having to even debate the idea of universal health care, which his country takes for granted: “Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor.”)
Pawlenty also fiercely criticized mandatory health insurance, the cornerstone of the new health care law — and also the foundation of the Massachusetts plan that was put into place by Pawlenty’s potential Republican rival, former Gov. Mitt Romney Pawlenty denounced a government so powerful that ” they can reach down to the individual citizens and force you to buy a good or service under penalty of a fine, namely health care. Have you had enough?”
(Ed. note: The quotes used herein are rush transcriptions, and may be subject to future editing.)
